Select Local Merchants

Flexibility is the name of the game at Focus Yoga, and Brookfield locals flock here for a total body workout.
Next time you're in the neighborhood, this studio should be at the top of your list with their amazing restaurant.
Little ones are just as welcome as their parents at this studio.
Put your endurance, flexibility, and strength to the test with Focus Yoga's hot yoga classes.
Brush up on your parallel parking skills — the studio's Monroe Ave location offers nearby street parking.

At over 100 locations throughout the country, CorePower Yoga (CPY) invites students to creative classes that meld movement, breath, heat, and music into entrancing routines to energize the body and mind. Signature CPY classes are taught by approachable certified yoga instructors who lead students through dynamic, Vinyasa-style flows with demonstration and verbal cues, helping pupils of all experience levels tone core muscles and cultivate balance. CPY also offers teacher training and lifestyle programs to empower students to become yoga instructors or to just advance their individual practice. During construction of all its new studios, CPY strives to use recycled content, install eco-friendly and efficient mechanical systems, and ensure that any waste created doesn't end up in landfills or just piled in Mr. Henderson's garage.

The certified yoga instructors at Stardust Yoga Studio lead class members through series of flowing poses to harmonize body and mind. Adult and youth yoga classes—in a variety of styles including vinyasa flow, hatha flow, and cardio-core—cater to busy schedules with sessions held day, noon, and night.

Before they became instructors, the faculty members
at Jo’s Footwork Studio honed their skills in a range of diverse companies, from Illinois’s postmodern Matrix Dance Improv to Mexico’s timeless Compañia Nacional De Danza. Now, these 11 toe-tappers train people of all ages and levels in the art of dance. Year-round instruction perfects form and expressivity in styles including ballet and hip hop. Pomdance lessons combine lyrical steps with pompoms as props, and percussive tap classes teach students to spell out their names in Morse code.

When Danny Benoit began practicing yoga more than 20 years ago, he wasn’t trying to tone up or touch his toes. “Most people come to yoga, I think, to find some calm, or to get in shape. … I came to it to fix my head,” he says.
After serving in the US Air Force during the Gulf War, Danny received a yoga book from his mother, a yoga novice herself. “She said, ‘I hope this helps you,’” he recalls. “It just brought a calm to me. … The postures, the breathing—all [of] that connected created a balance and a calm that I’d never felt before.”
That was in 1991; Danny didn’t discover his love for teaching yoga until 2008 as a pilot in Nepal. During a time of political upheaval, he found himself in an airport hangar with 300 pilot students, all of whom were grounded due to the turmoil outside. Demonstrating yoga became his way of engaging with them. It was “the one common denominator we had.”
Those crowded lessons in the hangar revealed Danny’s knack for forming and leading a yoga community. He then brought that talent to Chicago and became an instructor at the city’s first CorePower Yoga studio. He still works for CorePower today, though his classes are a bit smaller than his first: 30–40 students instead of 300. Nevertheless, he approaches teaching with the same enthusiasm and has become an advocate for the physical benefits of the practice, specifically its bolstering effect on the core.
“As we get older, the first thing that usually goes on us is our lower back or our knees, and that’s because of lack of core strength,” he explains. “If you gently pull your navel in … it acts like an airbag. It compresses everything together.” This airbag effect can help support the body and guard against injury as you age.
Here, Danny demonstrates six moves that work to strengthen the core and, therefore, stabilize and protect everything around it.
1. Navasana
This classic yoga move can be performed at five different levels of difficulty. For the most basic, lean back on your tailbone and bend your knees, grasping right behind them. Make sure to lift your chest—or “heart center”—toward the sky. Danny recommends holding for at least 30 seconds. For some extra oomph, release the hold on your legs and extend them.
2. Single Leg Slicers
“A Danny B. special,” the yogi says of this move. To begin, lay on your back and extend one leg to the sky with your foot flat. Press your palms together, and draw them to the outside of your raised leg, twisting your torso and lifting your shoulders off the mat. When you inhale, drop your leg; when you exhale, lift it back up. “If you want to work harder, hover your [other] heel.”
3. Dolphin Crunches
Start in plank on your forearms, making sure that your tailbone is even with your shoulders and that your hands are palms-down on the mat, shoulder-width apart. On an exhale, press the heart center back to “crunch” upwards, bending the body into a V. Inhale to come back to plank.
4. Flat Crunches aka Sacrum Balance
Before demonstrating this move, Danny expounds on its power: “This one doesn’t look like much, but try it and you’ll puke.” Lay back, but hover your feet and shoulders, balancing on your sacrum (right above the base of your tailbone). Simply hold this pose for 30 seconds to feel a burn in your belly.
5. Double Knee Taps
Sit up and bend your knees, as if you’re going into a navasana level-one lift. Extend one leg and place your hands behind your ears, positioning them like you would for a traditional crunch. Inhale and tap your opposite elbow to the knee of the bent leg, then to the knee of the extended leg, exhaling once with each tap.
6. Cross Lifts
Danny notes that this is a more advanced move better suited for the seasoned yogi. Lie flat on your back and plant one foot firmly on the outside of the other leg. Then, place your hands behind your head and square your shoulders toward the sky. Lift the bottom long leg, and crunch up as you exhale.